this is funny, to me. I’m old enough to remember Lacrosse as being a very brutal game played by a lot of Native Americans. It was anything but a sport for the entitled, in my area. Scared the hell out of me, and I was a pretty good hockey player, in an era when hockey was more physical.
-We did see a couple of “Bros” when touring Middlebury, right down to the sleeveless shirt.
-Swarthmore would definitely have them…one of their two frats is for LAX…but they would be somewhat marginalized.
-Carleton would be fine.
-Macalester too.
I think you might find more lax bros at UChicago than in the past.
Someone mentioned NEU and BU and I’d disagree - probably a lot of lax bros there.
Harvey Mudd is mentioned which may be light on lax bros but from description is sounds like Claremont McKenna College has a lot of lax bros so you wouldn’t necessarily be avoiding them.
Hampshire was the first school that came to mind when I saw the topic. I highly recommend checking it out.
LOL, I know exactly what your D means! For those who aren’t in a lax bro area, it’s sort of like a northeastern-party-cool-white boy-macho-sports fraternity. No disrespect or racism intended!
I graduated HS in 1977, and my school had a boys’ lacrosse team. I just never knew that it was a rare or unknown sport. To me it was just one of the available sports for boys at that time and eventually expanded to girls as Title IX took hold.
Strangely enough, there was a lacrosse mom on one of our many tours who was asking about just that! “This isn’t one of those ‘safe spaces, social justice’ schools, is it?” I don’t remember what the guide said but she just gave a straightforward answer and we all moved on.
“Scared the hell out of me, and I was a pretty good hockey player, in an era when hockey was more physical.”
My daughter played lax for many years. Younger brother would come watch her games, saw boys’ lacrosse being played on adjacent fields and wanted nothing to do with it watching them pound on each other with their sticks. He’s my athletic, risk taker kid - but he didn’t think being pummeled looked like fun.
It’s a great sport, though. I can certainly understand why it is popular.
There aren’t many Lax Bros at Northeastern. My son was actually a HS lax player, but not a bro. They only have club lax at NEU, so no formal varsity team, and they pretty much play and practice in anonymity there. The only sport that seems to have any traction there is hockey and that is because they play all of the local teams and there is some sense of a rivalry. But it’s not a big “sports” school at all I’d say.
BU has a bigger jock culture as they support more variety teams.
MIT has a lax team, but not much of a lax bro culture there for sure.
If you really want to avoid all lax bros just google which teams have NCAA lax programs, or MCLA club lax teams.
from midwest; never heard term before until this, even with 4 kids. My question is as i read this all : how do you say ax bro? Lax - like it rhymes with the word sacks? or the Letters L A X - like the airport LAX. ??? just curious!
Colorado College has the lax bro culture without being a big lacrosse school. It is a hockey school, but same vibe.
I don’t think the Lax Bro culture is limited to lacrosse. To me, the OP is looking to avoid the Bro culture which is stereo typically found in lacrosse but can be a hockey team, frat, eating club at Princeton, even an a Capella group. Lax Bro became a thing on Wall Street because the ‘guys’ all seemed to have a connection in the past, and it was often the lacrosse teams at Hopkins or Duke where that connection started.
Why is hockey a Canadian thing? That’s where they make the ice. (lacrosse is also a national sport in Canada). Sports grow where there is interest, and where the weather cooperates. Baseball is big in the south, surfing in California and Hawaii.
Lacrosse was big in the prep schools of Maryland, and those kids went on to the preppy schools of New England. Some went to Hopkins and MD so the sport grew there. The teams in/around Baltimore got stronger and stronger and now have a fun rivalry which they can’t have in football or basketball because of the different sizes of the school. Towson, Loyola, Hopkins, Maryland, and Navy, five very different schools, can compete evenly on the lacrosse field. Now UMBC wants in on the fun.
Jim Brown went to Syracuse on a lacrosse scholarship, not football.
“Colorado College has the lax bro culture without being a big lacrosse school. It is a hockey school, but same vibe”
Although you will find the bro vibe at Colorado College (as pointed out, more the hockey bro vibe), it doesn’t permeate the campus culture and is easy to ignore.
Someone else mentioned avoid schools with frats but you’ll find the bro culture at non-greek schools. Often, certain team sports will have their own frat-like culture - parties, all living in the same house or dorm, hanging out together, etc.
“So it’s like an airhead /dumb jock with money thing? Yeah, not really a big demographic in CA…”
Wait, you are talking about California, right? The one with surfer dudes and high schools that produce lots of swimmers & tennis players & other athletes with money? If someone asked Americans which state would airheaded jocks with too much money most likely come from, I would imagine CA would be near the top of the list.
Get the airhead/dumb jock stereotype out of your mind. The biggest lax schools are often the hardest to get into and the gps of the lacrosse teams better than the student body as a whole.
OP can find schools that don’t have the Lax Bro/Frat boy culture, but will have to remove a lot of top schools from her list. No Ivies, no NESCAC, no Duke, Hopkins, Northwestern on the list. Even women’s colleges recruit athletes and can have that same culture, or can feel that way because of the co-ed schools in a consortium.
On another thread, you asked if D should consider Haverford if considering Bryn Mawr. Haverford has a huge Lax Bro culture and there is no way that doesn’t carry over to BMC.
While reasonable minds can differ about the culture of various schools, I would not describe Haverford as having a strong bro culture at all (kind of antithetical to its Quaker culture), nor does anything like that carry over to Bryn Mawr. Haverford’s defining culture is nice, earnest, smart kids. This reminds me of the parent who posted last year about Haverford being preppy because the family saw everyone in dress shirts and khakis/dresses, and others surmised it may have been the career fair because that is not a typical day at the Ford.
"“So it’s like an airhead /dumb jock with money thing? Yeah, not really a big demographic in CA…”
Wait, you are talking about California, right? The one with surfer dudes and high schools that produce lots of swimmers & tennis players & other athletes with money? If someone asked Americans which state would airheaded jocks with too much money most likely come from, I would imagine CA would be near the top of the list."
Ha ha good point, guess I was thinking about my local area and what I’ve seen at the UCs I’ve been to more than the state in general.
Also, I haven’t seen anyone mention water polo. I wonder if that’s what the west coast version of Lacrosse is (as far as who plays). Is that played on the east coast at all?
I agree that this discussion is mean spirited and is only being tolerated because the targets are presumed to be white and privileged. Similarly perjorative descriptions of marching band members, LGBTQ culture, foreigners and members of minority races, shy students who love math, etc., would not be supported here.
It’s an interesting dynamic. And no, we don’t play lacrosse.
